5 Important Discoveries on Sleep Apnea that You Should KnowDecember 10, 2012

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5 Important Discoveries on Sleep Apnea that You Should Know

Reading through the clinical studies on journalsleep.org and other life science journals and forums, I stumbled on recent reports about disorders caused by sleep apnea.

These facts can be disturbing, but as long as you have a treatment for your sleep apnea, you don't need to worry. However, if you know someone with sleep breathing disorders, please pass along these facts:

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is characterized by diffuse muscular-skeletal pain, lasting for at least 3 months. The pain comes from the tendons, ligaments, muscles and tender points in soft tissues. In general, it is accompanied by stiff joints, fatigue and sleep disorders.

It has been shown that, when deprived of the deep phases of sleep, healthy young volunteers present complaints similar to those seen in patients with FMS.

Moreover, the inflammation and pain in tender points are also caused by low blood oxygen levels.

Part of the problem with sleep apnea is that your levels of inflammation rise as a result of the lowering of oxygen levels.

However, as your treatment with CPAP starts to work, the inflammation levels will go down. For some people, that results in less pain. For others, fibromyalgia will remain untreated.

Hypertension is another major indicator of the presence of OSA because about one half of patients with EH have OSA, and about one half of all patients with OSA have EH.

In fact, in the last two years, seven major studies have shown that OSA is an independent risk factor for hypertension and, generally, the more severe the OSA, the more prevalent and severe the hypertension.

Now the good news: Many studies have shown that successful treatment of OSA is associated with a significant reduction in blood pressure levels.

From a study of 244 asthmatic patients, the researcher found that “37% snored habitually and 40% demonstrated high OSA (obstructive sleep apnoea) risk.”

In another study entitled, “Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and asthma: what are the links?” the researcher noted that several studies confirm that asthmatics are more prone to developing obstructive sleep apnea.

The study further noted that symptoms in common for asthma and OSA included nasal obstruction, a small pharyngeal cross sectional area, and an increase in upper airway collapsibility.